Pam Lennard Gave Back Through Her Gift of Design

A letter from Pam Lennard

Owner of StillScapes Photography

“first porch project” designer & GK advocate

I became aware of GK a couple of years ago when friends were chatting about someone they knew who was a bartender that had suffered a personal tragedy and was in need of financial help.  When I inquired further and did some research on my own, I found out GK brings a spotlight to a situation that I was totally unaware of beforehand.  Food service people intersect every one’s life on multiple levels daily, and with the pandemic and knowing about Giving Kitchen, I knew I wanted to find a way to guide money toward an industry that would suffer greatly during this uncharted territory we faced.  GK is an organization that knows how, where, and when to help people in their hour of need.     

While months passed and I got caught up in work and all of the craziness that comes with my photography career, Giving Kitchen was still in the back of my mind, and I began to take on a whole new level of understanding of the need in the food industry just in my day-to-day living.  Then 2020 came on with a vengeance with COVID and all of our lives were turned upside-down, and work came to a screeching halt.  It’s then that I knew — then and there, in that moment — I had an answer for what to do — raise money through photography, and the First Porch Project was the answer.  I knew I wanted to move money toward GK because they had the know-how, the connections, the network to reach those in need. I put out feelers to my clients, outlined what I wanted to do, they networked, formed tentacles that reached out to neighborhoods, friends, family, even the companies they worked for, and before you know it, I was driving down streets, taking pictures from a distance of folks on their porches for hours and days, asking only for a donation to Giving Kitchen.  In order to receive the images I took, they would send me a receipt of their donation they made directly to GK, and I would then forward them a link to the images.  The outpouring of love from the community was amazing and surpassed my expectation. 

Some people would ask me, “What is Giving Kitchen?”  I would give them my brief and cryptic overview and many times would get messages, “Thank you for enlightening me on GK.  I never knew such an organization existed.”

Not only did we raise money, but light was cast on GK to so many more in our communities that otherwise didn’t know such an entity existed — just as I didn’t know a couple of years ago.   

While the pandemic still exists on many levels and the fallout from it will exist for years, the immediate needs of those in crisis in the food service industry goes on.  Workers have catastrophic injuries, deaths in the family, and many other personal tragedies outside of a pandemic.  GK is there to help.  They are one of many organizations in Atlanta who are well-established, staffed on numerous levels in terms of qualified personnel in various sectors, and they are prepared to help people when they don’t know where and when to ask for help.  They have the resources to get people back on their feet and begin to help themselves just like I had the resources to network with people to encourage donations and bring awareness in uncharted territory during the pandemic to help Giving Kitchen.  Many of the people I reached in my project will continue to make donations to GK based on their being made aware such an entity existed.    

I think in many ways the COVID pandemic opened our eyes and ears to the needs of our communities.  I know in my case, it slowed me down and opened my eyes and heart to Giving Kitchen and I feel like I passed the torch to others to help carry the message.